The Black Cat's Whiskers
by highlandgypsy
Summary: There's strange something afoot - literally - when Sergeant Micklin finds odd things on his flight line. He holds Major Greg Boyington accountable for what he thinks is a college boy prank but it soon becomes apparent there's more to it than that. Associated Press correspondent Kate Cameron joins Greg, Micklin and the Black Sheep on a merry Halloween romp.
1. Chapter 1

This was written as a writer's group challenge – include a cat in fanfic story. I admit to taking some liberties with it, as the original premise *might* have specified kitten, not cat. Ah, well, such is editorial license. There's strange something afoot - literally - when Sergeant Micklin finds odd things on his flight line. He holds Major Greg Boyington accountable for what he thinks is a college boy prank but it soon becomes apparent there's more to it than that. Associated Press correspondent Kate Cameron joins Greg, Micklin and the Black Sheep on a merry Halloween romp.

 **THE BLACK CAT'S WHISKERS**

 **October 24, 1943**

 **Vella La Cava**

 **VMF 214 HQ**

"Boyington!"

USMC Major Greg Boyington gritted his teeth as he looked up from the sea of paperwork littering his desk.

"Boyington!" The summons came again, bellowed in a tone of outrage that was impossible to ignore. God knows he'd tried often enough.

He shoved back from his desk and looked at the tent's other occupant. A young woman wearing cut-off fatigues and a man's white shirt rolled to the elbows was seated in a chair, her shapely legs and bare feet propped on the edge of his desk. She raised her eyebrows.

"What have you done now?" The humor in her voice hinted at her amusement at seeing him in hot water again.

"No idea."

"BOY-ING-TON!"

There was only one person on this base who dared address him in that tone of voice. Greg grimaced. If Sergeant Andy Micklin wasn't so invaluable as the squadron's line chief, Greg would have pounded him flat for his attitude. As it was, if he wanted his planes to stay in the air, he had to operate with a degree of diplomacy when it came to dealing with the man on the ground.

"Aren't you going to see what he wants?" The girl scooped up a handful of black and white photos and slipped them into an envelope.

"Suppose he'll give up if I don't?"

The look she gave him spoke volumes.

Greg sighed.

"Come with me? He's easier to deal with when you're around."

"You'll owe me." She said it as if negotiating a business transaction but he saw the sparkle in her eye.

"I'll pay." He held her gaze, giving her the full advantage of his smile. "Charge me whatever you want."

She looked up through dark lashes and smiled back, soft color rising in her cheeks. Check that off the list, Greg thought, still smiling in spite of the circumstances. He made it a point to make her blush at least once a day. It took some doing but if he could catch her in an unguarded moment, he could toss in a quiet reminder of how he really felt about her.

"Anything for you, Boyington." Her smile set his mind off in directions that had nothing to do with whatever had Andy Micklin bellowing like an enraged bull. Well, crap, he thought, glad he wasn't prone to blushing himself. That worked both ways.

He took a moment to admire her backside as she knelt to tie the laces on her boots. Kate "K.C." Cameron was an Associated Press correspondent covering the 214. She'd been embedded with the Black Sheep by Colonel Thomas Lard, who through a twist of fate had no idea K.C. stood for Katherine Christine. She'd been with the unit since mid-summer and no one saw any reason to tell Lard otherwise. Since Lard made it a point to stay on Espritos Marcos, it was working out well for everyone involved. Especially for him, Greg thought.

They walked, not touching, through the heat of the afternoon. The sergeant stomped out to meet them at the edge of the flight line.

"What's the problem, Micklin?" Greg dispensed with any pleasantries. He knew they'd be wasted on the tough-as-nails line chief.

Micklin glared at him, then looked at Kate and broke into a smile.

"Miss Kate." He tipped his grease-stained hat. "How you doin'?"

"I'm fine," she returned easily. "How are you, Sarge?"

Greg ground his teeth. Of course Micklin liked Kate. Everyone liked Kate. She could pour oil on the squadron's troubled waters with a skill that rivaled Casey or Anderson, who tended to be the unit's peacemakers. She had a dry sense of humor, legs that wouldn't quit and a take-no-prisoners attitude. She was the best thing that had happened to the 214 since they'd been formed. In the brief time she'd been on this rock, she'd achieved an honorary status that ranked her as some kind of ex-officio executive officer.

And now she was doing it again, talking Micklin down from his ire although the sergeant was still chomping on his cigar like a horse about to take the bit in his teeth and run with it.

Micklin turned from Kate to face him. His eyes narrowed. Greg's jaw clenched automatically. The Black Sheep had delivered a pounding to a Japanese flat top anchored off the coast of Choisuel that morning, achieving the mission goal, but they hadn't escaped unscathed and the trip home had been touch and go. He wasn't in the mood to fight another battle that day.

"Major, yer boys set these planes down after their little frolic this morning and now my boys got 24 hours to put 'em back together before you take 'em back up and beat the hell out of 'em again. If that ain't bad enough, now I gotta deal with _this_." He jabbed his cigar at the port wing of the nearest plane. "This one of them college boys' idea of a joke?"

Greg and Kate turned as one to follow his line of sight. It became immediately clear what had gotten Micklin's dander up.

"What the hell is that?" Greg took a step closer and blinked in honest confusion. Kate stepped up next to him, her gray eyes gone wide. Her hand flew to her mouth but he wasn't sure if it was in revulsion or to cover a laugh. Kate had an off-beat sense of humor.

A very large, very dead rodent lay just above the aileron. Its head had been neatly severed and blood ran off the wing in a sticky trickle. A few flies buzzed lazily around the body. A set of neat white paw prints lead away from the carcass. They traversed the length of the wing before ending where the wing met the fuselage.

"Go on!" Micklin ordered. "Go look at the other side. There's more tracks over there. Damn thing walked right through the cockpit and down the other wing."

He was still grumbling as Greg rounded the plane's nose and surveyed the deliberate line of paw prints. The fine white coral dust stood out in stark relief against the dark blue of the plane's wing.

Greg wasn't sure what Micklin was more upset about – finding the equivalent of a dead rat on one of his precious planes or having the plane defaced by what looked like cat tracks.

"What you gonna do about this, Major?"

Greg looked at the line chief and wondered at what point in this war, he'd been put in charge of dead rat detail. It appeared to be a jungle rat, one of the big brown ones that hung around the base's dump.

He cast a sideways glance at Kate. She'd had an encounter with one of the beasts shortly after her arrival on La Cava. It hadn't been an accident, having been orchestrated by none other than one of his execs who was suffering from a bruised ego when she'd turned him down for more than dancing after a party. He wondered if she was thinking about the same thing.

The smile she was trying to swallow made him think she was, but the rat Jim Gutterman had placed in her bunk three months ago had been very much alive. Gutterman could be a pain in the ass but he wasn't psychotic. Or stupid. Placing dismembered animals on the wing of his own bird to annoy the 214's irascible line chief fell solidly into both categories.

Greg scratched his head and folded his arms.

"These are your planes, right?"

"Damn right," Micklin said vehemently.

"On your flight line?"

"Damn right." Micklin looked at Greg suspiciously.

"Then this is your problem, not mine." Greg turned on his heel and started to walk away.

"Hey! I ain't done with you yet!"

Greg took a deep breath and turned around.

"What do you want me to do? Send the boys out here to set mouse traps for you?"

"That thing ain't no mouse," Micklin grumbled. "It's one of them big rat things. Don't know what it's doin' on my line in the first place."

"It doesn't look like you need traps, you've got a cat," Kate said cheerfully. Greg had to hand it to her. Micklin's glare could have dropped a Marine at 10 paces but she was undaunted.

"Don't want a cat. A cat don't got no business on a fighter base."

"You should feel honored." Kate slid her arm through Micklin's and drew him back toward the shade of the mechanics' shed. "It's a sign of affection – cats sharing their, um, kills, with people they like."

The line chief took the cigar out of his mouth and studied her.

"You pullin' my leg, Katie?"

"Not at all. Our farm cats used to do it all the time back home. Doesn't make it any less disgusting but I think . . . ," she looked over her shoulder and cast a meaningful glance at Greg. He stepped forward, took the decapitated rodent by the tail and flung it into the jungle.

"I think," she continued, "that you have a cat. You just don't know it yet."

"Maybe it likes Hutch better. Maybe that little gift was meant for him."

"Could be." Kate shrugged. "Either way, there are worse things to have hanging around."

"It left tracks all over my plane," Micklin grumbled. "Next thing you know, it'll be sittin' up there on the nose like a furry hood ornament."

"I'm sure those tracks will wash off when it rains this afternoon." Kate eyed the clouds building in the west. "And a little bitty cat isn't going to hurt your planes any. You really should feel honored it left its kill for you. It's probably lonely out here."

Greg thought she was pouring it on a little thick but Micklin seemed to like it.

"I reckon you're right. I got bigger things to worry about, anyway. You oughta see what them college boys did to my planes this morning."

Greg watched as Kate gave Micklin's arm an affectionate squeeze. The crusty sergeant gave her a smile in return, then turned and marched back toward the nearest plane, bawling orders at an underling.

"How'd you do that?" Greg jerked his head toward Micklin when she rejoined him.

"Do what?"

"Talk him down out of that tree. He was ready to take a swing at me and you had him eating out of your hand in less than a minute."

She smiled. The effect was dazzling, lighting the sparkle in her gray eyes and accentuating the fine bones of her face. Greg returned the smile. He couldn't help it. When she'd walked into the middle of his squadron earlier that summer, he'd been ready to ship her out on the next available transport. A lot had changed since then.

"Micklin's not so bad. Besides, he trusts me. I've never knocked him out cold." When Greg didn't reply, her grin deepened. "It's no wonder the two of you don't get along – you're both cut from the same cloth. Stubborn, hard-headed, always have to be right, know-it-all –"

"Cut from the same cloth, my ass," Greg muttered, putting an end to her litany. She was more perceptive than he wanted to admit.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they walked. She leaned into him briefly and he enjoyed the pressure of her body against his. It was as much of a public display of affection as they allowed each other in the fishbowl that was VMF 214. Even as the base dozed in the mid-day heat, he knew someone had eyes on them. The boys were fascinated by their relationship and it didn't help that they were all living in each other's back pocket.

"We don't have cats out here, do we?"

Greg liked the way she used "we," as if she were a member of the squadron, not just press corps assigned to them by Lard's mistaken assumption that constant press scrutiny would keep them in line. And by now, she really _was_ a member of the squadron, bringing skills and assets to the table in a number of ways that benefited all of them. And lately, especially him. He forced his mind back to the topic at hand.

"I don't think so. At least I've never seen one. Maybe there are some up at the hospital and one wandered down here. Probably just a matter of time until Meatball runs it off." He had a brief vision of the bull terrier racing down the flight line in hot pursuit of a cat, strewing chaos in his wake. Micklin would love that.

Meatball, as the squadron's self-appointed mascot, did a fine job of keeping the local wildlife out of the base. The island was plagued by all manner of bugs, some big enough they should file flight plans before taking off. Monkeys routinely scampered out of the jungle and had a penchant for stealing anything shiny and new. Fortunately, very few things at the 214 fit that description. The island was also home to more birds than you could shake a stick at, and wild pigs wandered out of the jungle interior from time to time. Meatball kept busy on his wildlife patrols.

But a cat? Greg was pretty sure there were no cats on Vella La Cava, never mind the evidence pointed to the contrary.

 **XXX**

 **Later that afternoon**

Kate poked at a typewriter key with a desultory finger. The story she was writing about the Black Sheep's involvement in taking out a top secret Japanese radar installation known as the Cat's Whiskers was a tricky endeavor. The squadron had gone a little rogue on what turned out to be a mission planned and executed without any authorization by Colonel Lard. The Cat's Whiskers mission had ended well enough, though, with the radar station destroyed and Lard unable to raise too much of a stink because he naturally took credit for everything. The whole deal left her struggling to spin the newspaper story to Greg and the boys' advantage.

Writing about the Cat's Whiskers had her thinking about the mysterious cat that had marched up and down Jim's plane and before long, she was doing more thinking than writing.

She had no idea why a cat would be drawn to the chaos of a fighter base, especially the flight line, which was a cacophony of clanking metal and yelling men. Greg was right. It was an atmosphere better suited to a dog. Meatball was never happier than when he was running alongside the Black Sheep when they scrambled for a mission. The air raid siren made him wag his tail even faster and if there was a brawl at the Sheep Pen, the terrier was usually right in the middle of it.

But those had undeniably been cat tracks on the wing of Jim's plane. How would it have gotten here in the first place? Meatball had arrived with Greg under circumstances she still didn't understand but it wasn't like any of the boys had smuggled their pet kitten from home. Maybe families of the top brass stationed in places like Pearl Harbor had family pets in their off-base housing but not out here in the Empire of Japan's back yard. Besides, something about the deliberate arrogance of the placement of the rat carcass made her think they were dealing with more than just a domestic pet from stateside. Kate found herself thinking about the unknown creature in capital letters. Not just the cat. It was The Cat.

In spite of the initial goriness, there wasn't anything particularly menacing about it, either. Just a cat doing what cats had done for centuries - killed rodents and presented them for their masters' approval.

Only in this case, there wasn't any master. At least none that were aware they had been elevated to that status. She should ask Casey what he knew about it. One of Greg's executive officers, Larry Casey knew more about what went on at the 214 than anyone else. Along with Greg and Jim, he was one of the master puppeteers who pulled the strings and choreographed the trade deals that kept the squadron in the air when Lard tightened the purse strings on the unit's supply line.

She made a face at the sheet of paper in her typewriter and abandoned the story in pursuit of fact-gathering of another kind.

 **XXX**

The calendar hanging behind the bar in the Sheep Pen proclaimed it was Oct. 24. It was one week until Halloween, although no one on the Marine base seemed to pay that fact much attention.

It was after 1700 hours and the Black Sheep's equivalent of happy hour was well under way, although as far as Kate could tell, any time they weren't actively on a mission had the potential to be happy hour.

Greg and Casey had their heads bent over something on the table. Bobby Boyle and Don French were throwing darts. Bob Anderson was tending bar. Jim Gutterman was regaling his wingman and bunkmate, TJ Wiley, and Jerry Bragg with tales of his latest conquest with one of the nurses. He hastily ended the story when Kate walked into the Sheep Pen. The boys weren't above detailed replays of their romantic escapades but since Kate had officially become Greg's girl, they teased her endlessly but kept their locker room talk to themselves. More or less.

"What are you drinking, Katherine?" Bob asked.

"Beer's fine, thanks." She took the proffered bottle and leaned back on her elbows against the bar. "What do you know about cats?"

"Cats?" Bob looked at her quizzically. "As in, saucer of milk?"

"As in, leaving dead rodents on airplanes."

Bob furrowed his brow.

"Yeah, I heard about that. What do you want to know?"

"Is there one out here? On the base? And if so, where'd it come from? I don't think cats are exactly native to the Solomons."

Bob shook his head.

"I don't know anything. I've never seen a cat here. You'd better ask the rest of the guys."

She turned to face him.

"Greg wouldn't do something like that on purpose to antagonize Micklin, would he?"

The tall pilot threw his head back, laughing.

"Have you been out in the sun too long? Pappy's done some crazy stuff but he wouldn't poke Micklin on purpose."

Privately, that was what Kate thought, too, but she needed to hear someone say it.

Upon further questioning, the boys unanimously denied any knowledge of the rat. As it turned out, more than half of them confessed to having a phobia about rats and mice and said they wouldn't have touched the thing in the first place, let alone cut its head off and dared to arranged it for Micklin to find.

"What about you, Jim?" Kate fixed Greg's other executive officer with a cool gaze. "I know you don't have a problem catching rats if the need arises."

"Damnit, darlin', when are you gonna let that go?" Jim chuckled. He and Kate had established an easy friendship that didn't reflect their rocky start but she rarely let him forget she wouldn't take his crap.

"No," he continued," I didn't field dress a rat on my own bird to piss off Micklin."

Kate knew the Black Sheep were telling her the truth. They didn't know any more about it than she did. She took her beer and dropped down at the table between Greg and Casey.

"I love watching you work, Cameron." Greg leaned back in his chair.

She snorted.

"You love watching me whether I'm working or not."

His grin was unapologetic and for just a moment Kate let herself get lost in those blue eyes and dimples. That roguish look could get him anything he wanted but Kate would prefer he didn't realize the extent of that power. She wrenched her eyes away and gestured at the paperwork strung across the table.

"What are you two up to?"

"The usual - requisitions and desperation," Casey replied. "Hutch is rebuilding the rebuilt carburetors and Lard acts like we're asking for the moon when we requisition new ones. We're working out a trade with the Army boys on Rendova but it's slow going and we're down to the end of the oil from our last swap, too."

"Didn't you end up getting a lot of really weird stuff in that deal?" Kate tried to remember the details. It had happened barely a month ago, shortly after her relationship with Greg had taken a turn from purely professional to, well, something a lot more complicated.

"Yeah. That transport got rerouted because of weather and bypassed Espritos. It came here straight from Pearl. We helped ourselves, uh, we liberated a few things that weren't really, uh, well, we took advantage of the moment," Casey finished hastily. "We're hoping to trade some of it to the Navy for enough Scotch to trade to the Army for the carbs and oil. There was china for an officers' mess and 1200-threadcount Egyptian cotton sheets and –"

"What do you know about cats?" Kate interrupted.

"Cats?" The tow-headed pilot blinked in surprise. "Like, meowing, purring, catching mice? That kind of cat?"

"Especially catching mice," she confirmed.

"Oh. Micklin's deal. I heard about that."

"Everyone heard about that. I don't know if someone is pulling his leg or what. Those paw prints on Jim's bird looked like the real thing. Is it possible there's a cat out here?"

Casey shot her a look.

"Katie, anything's possible out here."

 **To be continued . . .**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

 **October 26, 1943**

 **Vella La Cava**

 **VMF 214 HQ**

"Boyington!"

Greg rolled over and groaned. Not again. He looked at his watch. 0600. The Black Sheep weren't scheduled to go up on patrol until later that day. _Much_ later that day. There'd been a hoe-down in the Sheep Pen last night and Greg would guarantee none of the boys were out of the rack yet. Hell, some of them probably weren't even in their own beds. They couldn't possibly have done anything to irritate the line chief this early in the morning although admittedly, it didn't take much.

"BOY-ING-TON!" The summons came again.

This time Greg caught a slight tone of desperation mixed with the overriding annoyance. He considered waking Kate so she could accompany him but then heard the faint tap-tap-tap of typewriter keys from the direction of her tent. If she was up already and working on a story, she meant business. She wouldn't appreciate being interrupted. He sighed. No sense in having both her _and_ Micklin pissed at him, although he knew he could bring her out of it without too much trouble. He pushed off his bunk and threw on fatigues and a T-shirt. Yawning, he stuffed his feet in boots and headed to the flight line to see what had crawled up the line chief's butt this time.

"This yer boys' idea of a joke?" Micklin jabbed a finger toward the workbench in the mechanics' shed. A long, rope-like shape was stretched neatly across a scattering of tools. Greg stepped forward, then took an involuntary step back.

The snake was at least three feet long. It might have been longer but its head was missing. The early sun slanting through the open-sided shed cast the geometric pattern of its scales in a golden glow. It was kind of pretty. For a dead snake.

Greg scratched his head.

"Sarge, my boys aren't behind this. They spent last night in the Sheep Pen and by the time they left, most of them were doing good to find their own beds, let alone catch a snake." He gestured at the corpse, which had nothing to say for itself.

"Don't like snakes," Micklin grumbled. "They gimme the heebie jeebies."

Greg couldn't resist.

"Maybe you should tell your cat and it will bring you something different next time."

"Don't got no cat. You see a cat around here? I don't see no cat around here. I see a bunch of college boys who think they're funny."

"And I'm telling you, my boys didn't do this." Greg's tone took an edge. It was one thing to get woken up early. It was another to get woken up early and get an ass-chewing for something beyond his control.

"They ain't no choir boys, neither," Micklin snarled.

He had a point, Greg thought, but the Black Sheep's shenanigans tended to revolve around alcohol and members of the opposite sex, not necessarily in that order. This was totally out of character for any of them.

"Hey, Sarge, you gotta see this."

Greg and Micklin turned to see Hutch standing in the open doorway, a perplexed look on his face.

"It better not be another dead critter with its head lopped off," Micklin said.

"Um, no. It's not. It's just . . ." Hutch motioned for them to follow him.

They stopped at the first plane on the line. Hutch pointed.

A series of white coral dust paw prints traversed the port wing, went up and over the canopy and down the starboard wing. The next plane in line sported the same design. The tracks continued up and over several more aircraft until the perpetrator apparently no longer found the activity amusing and stopped.

"Looks like cat tracks to me," Greg said. "Why don't you just admit you've got a cat?"

"Just cuz it's out here don't mean it's mine," Mickin grumbled.

Greg gave up. Teasing Micklin was a dicey proposition with the potential to end badly, given the line chief's volatile temper.

"Your line, your planes, your cat." He winked at Hutch. "Can you check the rudder cables on my bird before we go up today? They were a little slushy yesterday."

"You got it, Pappy." The lean, dark-haired mechanic stepped closer and lowered his voice. "You really think it's a cat doing this?"

Greg turned away from Micklin, who had taken a four-foot-long torque wrench and was attempting to remove the snake from the workbench without touching it.

"It's gotta be. Those tracks are pretty uniform. French is handy with artwork and crap like that. He could pull it off but he left the party with Darla last night and I have it on good authority they were not coming out here to do something like this. If someone did it on purpose, it would have taken a lot of time to make it look that authentic."

"Who – or what – ever did it sure was quiet. My tent's right next to the line and I didn't hear anything last night," Hutch said. "This is making Micklin crazy."

Greg chuckled.

"Good."

 **XXX**

The 214 enjoyed three days of relative peace. Micklin groused about that damn varmint continuing to leave paw prints all over his aircraft but no further headless corpses had been presented so he kept his growling to a minimum. No one had seen or heard anything that looked like a cat. The boys joked it was the ghost of a cat, that's why no one ever saw it and the paw prints were white.

Kate woke up on two of those mornings in her tent and the third, on the beach, wrapped in Greg's arms. Their loving the night before had taken her mind completely off anything but the touch of his hands and the scent of his skin. She forgot completely about any cats, phantom or real.

Since it was now two days before Halloween, Don tried carving coconut shells into jack-o-lanterns for a pending party. Coconut shells proved to be an uncooperative medium and Kate drove him to the hospital for stitches as a result.

"You guys have any cats around here?" she asked First Lieutenant Dee Ryan as the Navy nurse administered a local anesthetic.

Dee looked up in confusion.

"Cats?"

"Yeah."

"We've got four cases of malaria and one of dengue fever and yesterday we had un-exploded ordinance just outside the compound from Tuesday's air raid but . . . " she shook her head slowly, " . . . no cats. Why?"

"We've got one wreaking havoc down at the base and no idea where it came from," Kate said. "Micklin's losing his shit over it because it keeps leaving him little presents. No one has ever seen it so we don't even know for sure it's a cat but what else could it be? He blamed the Black Sheep but they're innocent. For once." She grinned at Don, who made a noise of protest and tried to look hurt.

"If you guys aren't having one over on him, then what's going on?" Kate asked him as Dee stitched and bandaged his hand.

Don scratched his growth of two-day beard and shook his head.

"Nobody knows. No one has seen anything. I got in my bird this morning and there were paw prints all over the nose. They're not little, either. Whatever's leaving them is one big kitty."

Kate thought the same thing but kept it to herself. The tracks were substantially larger than any domestic cat she'd ever seen.

When they got back to the base, Jim waved them down and told Kate Greg was looking for her. She found him in his tent, contemplating Meatball. The dog had a set of bloody furrows scratched across his muzzle and wasn't keen on having them tended. Every time Greg reached for him, he showed his teeth and backed away. When Kate sat down on the bunk, the dog climbed in her lap and pressed his head against her breasts. She fussed over him for a minute then looked at Greg.

"When your dog's done feeling me up, I think he'll let me clean that."

Meatball gave a contented sigh and pressed his face against her shirt. Kate rolled her eyes. Greg brought a bowl of disinfectant and a cloth and sat down next to her.

"You should have been a nurse," he said as she gently wiped the crusted blood off Meatball's face.

"I'd make a terrible nurse," Kate said, concentrating. "I'm not nearly as patient with humans as I am with animals." Meatball snuggled closer. Kate narrowed her eyes at him. "And if any of the boys tried that, they'd be picking their teeth up off the floor."

She finished cleaning the wound and applied a layer of antibiotic cream.

"There. Keep your nose in your own business and that sort of thing won't happen again," she admonished.

"That's it!" Greg said as she kissed the dog on the nose.

"What's it?" She looked up, perplexed.

"We'll take Meatball and have a stakeout tonight. He can be a watch dog and let us know if anything's out there."

"A stakeout." It wasn't a question. Kate could tell by the tone of his voice he'd already committed to the idea.

"If we go out to the line after dark and sit real still, maybe we'll see whatever it is that's sneaking around. How's that sound?"

"It sounds like you're trying to get me alone in the dark," she said.

"That, too."

 **XXX**

At 2300 hours, Greg parked the jeep about mid-way down the flight line. Kate kicked off her shoes, propped her feet on the dash and prepared to wait. At 2330 hours, the last of the mechanics called it a night and the generator powering the lights was switched off, plunging the area into shadows. At 2400, Meatball curled up in the back of the jeep and went to sleep, showing no interest in anything that might come prowling out of the jungle to deliver a care package or dance across the planes.

Aside from a delicious interlude of making out, which left both of them agreeing they should have just gone to the beach where their activity could have reached its natural conclusion, the evening was a bust. At 0200, Kate fell asleep on Greg's shoulder, only to wake an hour later when it began to rain.

Reluctantly, he admitted the stakeout had been a failure and they retreated through the rain to their respective tents.

 **XXX**

"Boyington!"

Greg swore without opening his eyes. This was getting old.

"You see anything interesting during your after hours activity last night?" Micklin demanded when he arrived on the flight line.

Greg figured he wasn't asking about the curve of Kate's breasts as he unbuttoned her shirt or the lean muscle of her thighs under his hands.

"No. It rained. We left." He looked around. He didn't see any decapitated carcasses sprawled on the nearest plane or prominently displayed on the workbench. The plane closest to him didn't sport the tell-tale white tracks. He started to breathe a little easier.

"Then how do you explain _that_?" Micklin jabbed his cigar at a nearby jeep seat. The seat had been amputated from the rest of the jeep and affixed on top of a wooden crate to form what Hutch and the other mechanics called "Micklin's Throne." The sergeant had modified the seat with a footrest and reclining mechanism and could occasionally be found sleeping there during the midday heat.

Someone had tossed what looked like a bundle of feathers onto the seat. The feathers were attached the body of a bird. A very large bird. Its neck hung over the side of the seat. Its head was missing.

"It was there when I went to the head at 0500," Micklin informed him. "What time did you say you called it quits on your little outing?"

"Around 0300." Greg studied the kill. "That's one big bird."

"Damn right, major. I dunno what's going on around here but I reckon I'm about done with it. First there's a dead critter on one of my planes. Then there's one on my work bench. Now I find one right here where I like to take me a little siesta now and then. At this rate, the next one's gonna turn up on my pillow."

Greg thought that was a distinct possibility but didn't say so.

"And lookit here." Micklin motioned Greg to follow him toward the jeep parked by the line chief's tent.

"What am I looking at?" Greg was starting to think fighting the Japanese was easier than dealing with whatever was going on here.

"This. More of them tracks and a big furball."

Greg looked. A line of coral dust paw prints meandered randomly across the hood, ending in a dusting of black fur, like an animal had curled up and sat there for awhile, then shook itself before jumping down.

"Musta been sittin' there like a damned hood ornament," Mickin said. "Probably watchin' you all the while you was watching for it."

Greg crossed his arms. Time to toss the ball back into Micklin's court.

"I still don't know what you expect me to do about it."

"You're the CO of these flying misfits, aren't you?" Micklin glared and went on without giving him a chance to answer. "Then you either get rid of it or next thing you know, you're gonna try to take off for a mission and it'll be sittin' in one of them planes like it owns it, cuz nobody's told it different. And that -" he jabbed the air with his cigar, "- ain't gonna be my problem."

Greg doubted it would be his problem either. If the cat – and he was assuming it was a cat even though he had no idea how a cat would have gotten to La Cava – wanted to gift the line chief its kills and sit on the occasional jeep, well, a few paw prints weren't hurting anything, were they? He couldn't picture one taking up residence in a Corsair. Besides, the mechanics carefully kept the canopies closed at night in case of bad weather. He'd check with Hutch to make sure they double-checked them for a few weeks. Maybe the cat would move on.

"Want me to get rid of that for you?" He motioned toward the bird.

"Hell no!" Micklin snatched it up possessively. He held it by its feet so it dangled like a butchered chicken. "The thing's still warm. It's fresh. I'm gonna pluck it and roast it."

 **XXX**

The Black Sheep landed from the day's patrol to find Micklin roasting the plucked bird over a small fire pit. The line chief looked pleased with himself as he turned the homemade spit and the rich scent of roasting meat drifted on the air.

Greg shook his head and prayed Colonel Lard didn't choose that particular moment for a drop-in inspection. He was pretty sure roasting native fowl in the middle of a fighter base was not in the Marine Corps Manual. Having a cat on the base probably wasn't either, but since no one had actually seen the thing, he figured he wasn't going to worry about it. If all it did was drag its hunting trophies out of the jungle and dump them at Micklin's feet, there was no harm in that.

The next morning, Micklin nearly tripped over a large fish that had been laid at the door of his tent. Its head was intact but the eyes had been daintily nibbled out. Micklin said it would be a damned waste to throw it away. He cleaned it and roasted it over a fire on a piece of broken propeller blade.

"I've heard of cedar plank salmon but never of Corsair prop sea bass," Casey muttered as they trudged past on their way to the Sheep Pen after the morning mission.

"That's one damn big fish," Bobby Boyle said uneasily. "What did that cat do? Swim out past the reef and go diving?"

"Musta been caught in the tide pools at low tide and the cat drug it out," Don said. "I don't even want to think about a cat that can bring down a bird _and_ catch fish."

That evening, Greg and Jim headed out to the line to discuss maintenance issues with Micklin. They found him staring at the jeep, which again sported a maze of dusty tracks culminating in a clump of black fur.

"Somebody steal your hood ornament?" Jim asked, standing just out of the line chief's range.

"Don't get smart with me, college boy." Micklin shifted his cigar to the other side of his mouth and changed the subject.

After an hour of haranguing back and forth, Greg and Micklin reached their usual uneasy truce regarding the former's demands for performance in the air and the latter's opinion that the Black Sheep were ham-handed menaces who should be sent back to flight school to learn respect for the aircraft they kept abusing.

Greg and Jim turned back to the base. Hutch ducked under a wing and motioned for them to follow him. He held a finger to his lips. Greg and his exec exchanged glances and followed him to the back of the mechanics' shed. Hutch pointed wordlessly.

A bowl from the mess tent sat in a small clearing. It was filled with white liquid.

"Is that milk?" Greg began.

"Yepper," Hutch said. "It's that powdered milk nobody out here will drink. Micklin's got a box of it stashed in his tent. I saw it yesterday when I dropped off his mail."

"He's feeding that thing?" Jim sputtered. "What the hell's he feeding it for? It hunts better than my uncle's coonhounds." He circled the bowl, which sat on soft, bare dirt. "Look at the size of those paw prints!"

"Maybe he's trying to lure it in and catch it," Greg suggested, although for the life of him, he couldn't imagine why.

"That's even worse," Hutch said. "The guys out here are getting jumpy. It's not like they're afraid of a cat but no one's ever seen the thing. It just shows up, drops off its kill, walks all over everything, sheds on the jeep and leaves. It's like some kind of phantom."

"There are no such thing as ghost cats," Greg said firmly. "If Micklin wants to feed it, that's his business. The thing's sharing its kills with him, after all."

 **XXX**

"He's feeding it?" Kate was incredulous.

Greg tipped two fingers of Scotch into a tumbler and handed it to her, then poured his into a porcelain mug and paced the tent.

"Yeah. Put out a saucer of milk for it."

"Who knew Micklin had a soft side?" Kate leaned back in her chair and stretched her legs out to balance her toes on the edge of Greg's desk. Meatball snoozed nearby.

"He doesn't," Greg said. "I've traded a few punches with him and believe me, if he's got a soft side, I never found it."

Kate just raised her eyebrows and sipped her drink. She loved watching his mind work and when it wasn't a matter of life or death squadron business, it could be quite entertaining.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say he was encouraging it to stick around," Greg muttered. "It's stopped walking on the planes. Now it sits on the hood of his jeep in the middle of the night and sheds black fur all over."

"It's kinda sweet that it likes him," Kate mused. "I mean, you have Meatball."

"I have Meatball because I couldn't leave him in China. They probably would have eaten him." Greg gave the dog an affectionate look that belied his gruff words. "Now I don't know what's crazier – that there's a great, big cat prowling around out here or that its decided to be Micklin's buddy."

She laughed, admiring the muscular curve of his butt as he turned away to set the bottle down. The night was warm and he was only wearing skivvies and a T-shirt.

"Jealous?"

"Don't be smart, Cameron." Greg stretched out on his bunk and slapped the canvas. "Join me."

She shook her head.

"No way. We start to get cozy and you know exactly what will happen." The boys were infamous for interrupting anything that held even the faintest scent of a romantic interlude. "Casey will show up and need your signature on half a dozen forms, Jim will show up and want to talk about tomorrow's mission, TJ will – "

"They can wait." His voice had gone husky and Kate caught her breath. His eyes were an open invitation. He tapped his fingers on the bunk again. "Here. Now."

"Is that an order?" To be close enough to him to smell the scent of his skin and hear his heart beat was playing with flame in the middle of the base.

"I quit trying to give you orders two months ago."

"Good." She swallowed hard. She couldn't resist him and they both knew it.

"Come here," he said, "and take my mind off that damn cat."

 **To be continued . . .**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

 **October 28, 1943**

 **Vella La Cava**

 **VMF 214 HQ**

"Cameron!"

Kate looked at her watch. 0635. The boys were scheduled to go up at 0700 and she always accompanied the squadron to the flight line. She wasn't late. Yet.

"Cameron!"

In the relative peace of her tent, Kate raised her eyebrows. Greg had stopped bellowing at her about 48 hours after she arrived on Vella La Cava but he still used her last name more than her first. He did it on purpose, as if treating her like one of the boys would fool anyone. Still, he usually didn't start quite this early.

"Cameron! Flight line! Now!"

Something in his voice made her grab her camera and dash out of the tent before she'd done a morning once over. Jogging to the line, she hastily finished buttoning her shirt.

A group of Black Sheep were milling around in front of TJ's bird. The general air was of confusion tinged with mild apprehension. While this wasn't unusual for anything involving TJ, Kate wondered if the mission had been scrubbed or the parameters changed from a routine patrol to something more serious. Greg stepped out to greet her.

"We have a situation." His expression said he didn't know whether to laugh or start drinking. Several of the boys chuckled.

"A situation?"

"Someone left his canopy open last night. Go look for yourself." Greg jerked his thumb at TJ's plane. Kate handed her camera to Anderson. TJ politely cupped his hands to give her a leg up onto the wing.

Unsure of what to expect, Kate found the toeholds and maneuvered herself to the cockpit. Bracing her hands on the canopy track, she looked in.

"Whoa."

Reflexively, she stepped back with one foot, then realized she was five feet above the ground. She gripped the edge of the track a little more tightly. She looked over her shoulder at the expectant faces below her.

"What do you expect me to do about this?"

"You're the farm girl, darlin'," Jim said. "We thought you'd be best suited to deal with it."

"Half of you guys grew up on farms. Did any of you even _try_ to move it?"

There was a great deal of shuffling and muttering, during which the boys all looked at their boots. Greg shook his head.

"What they mean is they all climbed up and looked at it but none of them had the balls to deal with it."

"Discretion is the better part of valor, Pappy," Anderson pointed out. "And that thing doesn't really look like it wants to be moved."

"What do you want me to do?" Although the solution was fairly obvious, she still felt she should ask.

"If you could just scoop it up and get it out of our way, that would be great."

"You want to put the hospital on standby if this goes badly?" Kate asked, surveying the cockpit again. "I think Dee has my next-of-kin information." She was only half joking.

"You'll be fine," Greg assured her. This was followed by a round of encouraging shouts from the boys.

Kate narrowed her eyes and assessed the situation.

"I hate to rush you, Cameron, but we have a mission to fly and we can't do it with that thing curled up in TJ's bird," Greg said from below. "It doesn't seem inclined to leave on its own."

"Here we go again," Kate muttered. "Got something no one else wants to do? Make the press corps do it." She turned her attention to the thing. It was curled comfortably on the seat. She looked down at TJ, who stood nervously near the wing. "Don't tell me they didn't have cats where you grew up."

"Yeah, Katie, we had cats but they didn't look like this one."

Kate was forced to agree. The creature sprawled across the leather seat was like no cat she'd ever seen. It looked like a normal cat in all respects – four legs, two ears and a tail - except it was at least half again as big as even the toughest tomcat she'd encountered on the South Dakota farm of her youth. Its sleek black fur glistened in the early rays of the sun. She couldn't see a speck of white on it anywhere. It was lean, lithe and well-muscled as the jaguar it resembled.

As she studied the cat, it blinked its eyes. They were as clear as sunlight on emerald green water. It yawned lazily, revealing pointed white teeth. It closed its mouth. Kate noticed, with a shock, the cat's canine teeth – at least that's what they were called in dogs, she had no idea what they were called in cats – remained visible, sharp white points extending to contrast against the black fur.

They looked like vampire fangs.

That was absurd. There was no such thing as a vampire cat. This was just an unusually large cat with unusually large teeth. Nothing more.

While she contemplated what the hell she was supposed to do now, the cat unfolded itself with a liquid movement and stretched its front legs, unsheathing claws as it kneaded the air. Kate had no doubt they were sharp as razors. She didn't blame the boys for not messing with it. The thing looked like the devil incarnate.

"Might I remind you, Katherine, that cats were worshipped as gods in ancient Egypt," Bobby Anderson offered helpfully.

"Apparently this one hasn't forgotten that. What do you suggest – I make it an offering?" She caught Jim's eye. "Maybe you could go catch a handy rat."

"No rats," TJ groaned. "If you feed it in there, it'll never leave."

"Cameron . . ." Greg tapped his watch.

"Kitty?" she said, unsure where to begin. The cat blinked at her. "You need to move. Come on. Kitty-kitty?"

No response. Just an arrogant stare. Kate got the distinct impression the cat was perfectly happy where it was and saw no reason to let the winds of war interfere with its nap.

"Let's go, mister, move it," she said firmly. Her tone would have had a dog or any of the Black Sheep snapping to attention. The cat blinked sea green eyes and regarded her lazily, then rolled onto its back. The fur on its belly was as black as the ace of spades.

"That's not what I had in mind," she hissed.

The cat flopped around on its back some more. It shot out a paw and swatted at a cluster of wires hanging under the plane's central control panel.

"You stop that right this minute!" Kate snapped. "I don't know where you came from but we don't do that here."

The cat withdrew its paw and looked mutinously at her.

"Cameron, not to put too fine a point on this but we've got a schedule to keep. The 182nd will laugh us out of air if we radio in a cat delay." Greg looked up at her, arms crossed. TJ stood next to him. Around them, other pilots had abandoned the little drama and were scrambling into their planes as the mechanics started them. The volume of the line rose to deafening levels as engines roared to life.

"Listen," Kate said to the cat in what she hoped was a reasonable tone. "If you don't get out of there, you're going to end up in a dog fight at 10 angels and trust me, you won't like it."

The cat took another swipe at the wiring bundle and looked at her defiantly.

"All right, buster. Time to go. If you tear up one of Micklin's planes, he have both our hides."

She took a deep breath and leaned into the cockpit. She dangled one hand in front of the cat's face. When it showed no particular interest in dismembering her, she tickled its stomach. Cats liked that, right? Why else would it be laying belly-up?

The cat wiggled blissfully on its back, showing every indication of enjoying the tummy rub. It tapped her hands with its front paws. Kate noted with relief the razor-sharp claws remained sheathed. She took that as a good sign. Now, all she had to do was actually scoop the thing up into her arms and climb down without getting mauled.

"I'm not getting any younger, Cameron." Greg's voice blended humor with impatience.

"Keep your shorts on, Major." She didn't look over her shoulder but heard him snort.

Unlike dogs, who are muscularly solid, Kate was convinced cats could exist in a liquid state. Balancing with one foot in the toehold, she slid both hands under the animal. It flopped bonelessly and was absolutely no help. She got the creature right side up and taking a deep breath, scooped it into her arms. The cat blinked in surprise at her audacity.

"Get over it," she said. The thing was heavy, easily more than 20 pounds and there wasn't an ounce of fat on it. Shifting the animal so its front quarters spilled over her shoulder, she held it firmly with one hand and used the other for balance as she slid back onto the wing. Greg reached up to grasp her around the waist and lift her down.

He stared at the cat. The cat stared back. Kate let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. The cat had been extracted from the plane. No one – namely her – had gotten mauled. The day was off to a good start.

"Thanks, Cameron. Introductions will have to wait," Greg said and bolted for his own bird.

"Yeah, thanks, Katie, I owe you a beer." TJ leaped onto the wing of his plane as Hutch spun the prop. She flashed him a thumbs up and, still holding the cat, retreated to the mechanics' shed. The planes taxied toward the airstrip, engines growling. The cat showed no signs of concern and clung to her like a large, furry sandbag.

"So this is what's been wiping his paws on my planes?" Micklin came to stand next to her as the last Corsair lifted into the sky.

"That would be my guess." Kate scratched the cat's ears. A noise like a badly tuned diesel engine rumbled through its chest.

"That thing all right?" Micklin studied the cat.

"I'd say he's the picture of health. Bright eyes, shiny fur. He's solid muscle. You want to hold him?" Kate started to detach the animal from her shoulder. It had made no attempt to change positions since she scooped it out of TJ's cockpit and clung to her like a limpet, purring madly.

"No!" Micklin waved a hand in front of his face. "I got more to do than mess with a cat."

"Hey, Katie." Hutch appeared around the edge of the shed. "Heard you caught the varmint."

"I didn't really catch it," she replied, making another unsuccessful attempt to peel the cat off her shoulder. It was getting heavy. "I just kind of removed it."

Hutch reached out and scratched the animal's head. It purred even louder. Kate thought her bones were echoing with the vibration. It raised a lazy paw and tapped Hutch's hand. Kate noticed the claws were still sheathed. It seemed to like all the attention.

"Friendly critter," the mechanic said. "Sure is big. Our neighbor at home has one of those Maine coon cats. This one's even bigger, only with short fur. And holy shit – sorry, Kate – look at those teeth. It looks like Dracula. Are cats supposed to have teeth like that?"

"I've never seen one," Kate said. "But I don't think this guy's missing any meals because of it."

She finally peeled the animal off her shoulder and set it on the ground. It strolled around with the air of royalty surveying its kingdom. All three of them watched it for a few minutes. It showed no signs of vanishing back into the jungle.

"I've got to get some work done in the darkroom before Greg gets back with that recon film," Kate said finally and started to leave.

"You take that furry mousetrap with you." Micklin gestured to the cat. "Keep him in your tent or something."

"Oh, no," Kate said. "I can't take that thing back onto the base. I think it already put holes in Meatball once. It can stay out here. That's where it's been hanging out anyway, right?" She lowered her voice. "Come on, Sarge, I know you've been putting milk out for it."

Micklin looked around to see if anyone else had heard. Hutch swallowed a grin.

"Who all knows about that?"

"Just the three of us. And Greg."

Micklin scowled.

"Don't seem right, tame animal like that out here in the jungle all by itself. Ought to have someone lookin' after it. I put that milk out just in case it couldn't catch nothing and got hungry."

The look on Hutch's face mirrored Kate's thoughts. If there was ever an animal who didn't need to be looked after, this was it.

The cat twisted around Kate's ankles. She ran her hand over the sleek ebony coat.

"What's that racket?" Micklin stared.

Kate choked back a laugh.

"He's purring."

"Hrmpff. Sounds like a Cummins V8 diesel with a faulty timing chain. You sure something ain't wrong with it?"

The cat sauntered over to Micklin. It sniffed his boots, then with leisurely grace, rubbed itself around his legs, tail coiling possessively around the sergeant's ankles. When this produced no reaction, the cat flopped over, wiggling all four feet in the air. Micklin nudged it with the toe of his boot. The cat grabbed the boot with its front paws and pretended to gnaw it.

Kate laughed.

"Looks like you've got yourself a cat."

"Don't want no cat. You take that thing with you. Go on, now. I got work to do."

Kate turned back to the base.

"See you later, Sarge! Bye, Hutch!"

"Hey!" Micklin shouted. "You forgot to take this here cat."

Kate looked at him. She looked at the cat.

"Here, kitty, kitty," she said.

The cat strolled over to the old jeep seat and jumped up. It sat down and began to wash a paw.

Kate shrugged.

"I don't think it wants to come with me. I think it likes it out here."

"Hrmpff," Micklin said. "All right, all right. I reckon it'll go away on its own."

"You let me know how that goes," Kate said and left, grinning.

 **XXX**

 **Three days later**

 **Oct. 31, 1943**

 **1900 hours**

Against her better judgment, Kate let Greg talk her into joining him and some of the boys for a game of poker after evening mess. She was kicking herself mentally when Bobby Boyle burst into the Sheep Pen.

"Here, lookit this!" He tossed a copy of the Honolulu Enquirer onto a table, scattering cards and money.

"Boyle, what are you doing, ya idiot? I finally got a good hand!" Casey complained.

Kate was happy for the diversion. It didn't matter if she had a good hand or not. She was a terrible poker player.

Bobby had folded the paper open to the advertising section. He tapped a decorative display ad. Jim picked it up and read aloud.

" _Free to good home: black cat with green eyes. Large. Affectionate. Obsessive hunter. Wife tired of finding dead things on the patio every morning. Neighbor thinks it's hexed. Must go. Call 555-7084, exchange 172."_

Jim looked at Bobby.

"You don't think . . .?"

"What's the date on that?" Kate shook out the paper and checked the cover. It wasn't unusual for transport pilots to bring old newspapers when they dropped loads of supplies on the island bases that scattered the Southwest Pacific. Once a unit had exhausted the news, they exchanged the paper for another one. It was a network of outdated information but one of the boys' major sources of maintaining a connection with the rest of the world.

"September 26," Kate said, "a month ago."

"You don't think . . .," Jim started again.

"That's the same cat that been driving Micklin nuts?" Kate finished for him. "Large black cat? Green eyes? Obsessive hunter?"

"That would explain where it came from but not how it got here," Greg said.

"The ad doesn't say anything about the vampire teeth." Bobby's brow furrowed. By now, the boys had all seen the cat. It routinely sat on Micklin's throne or any available jeep and occasionally on the nose of a plane. It generally acted like it owned the place.

"If you were trying to give a cat away, would you point out it looks like Bela Lugosi?" Greg said.

"It's a nice cat," Kate declared. "It's tame and friendly and –"

"And just happens to be as big as Meatball, with the same size teeth." Jim said darkly.

"Hey," Casey put in, "what if it somehow got on that transport that got re-routed from Pearl last month and came here first, instead of Espritos?"

The table was quiet while everyone considered this.

"What are the odds of a cat wandering onto an airfield at Pearl, getting on the transport without being discovered, then jumping off when it landed here?" Bobby mused.

"What are the odds of TJ shooting down Pappy?" Jim reminded him. "But it happened. Twice."

"What if the guy who ran the ad couldn't give it away because no one wanted it? What if he put it in a box and put it on that transport himself?" Bragg offered.

"That's a lot of work just to get rid of a cat," Jim said.

"Well, yeah, but that's a lot of cat to get rid of!" Bragg countered. "If his wife was throwing a fit about it, he might have done it just to keep peace in the family. The cat probably clawed its way loose on the flight, then jumped out of the plane after it landed here and no one saw it. That was a night landing, if I remember, and in rough weather."

"I think the bigger question is what's going to happen to it now." Kate tapped the newspaper. "From the sounds of this, the owner isn't going to want it back. He was trying to get rid of it in the first place."

"Good thing," Bobby said. "Can you imagine stuffing that thing in a box and shipping it back to Pearl?"

Most of the squadron gave the animal a wide berth. While the cat seemed to be on agreeable terms with everyone it encountered, no one wanted to chance activating what Jim called the "murder button."

"All cats got one," he had insisted. "And a cat with vampire teeth's probably got an extra big one. You never know what might set it off."

"I think it's in our best interests just to let Micklin deal with it," Greg said finally. "The thing seems happy enough out there and it isn't bothering anyone."

Kate agreed. The cat had not made any attempt to leave the flight line. It could be seen lazing in the shade during the heat of the day and Hutch had told her in confidence that he frequently saw Micklin giving it a friendly scratch. The only creature it didn't get along with was Meatball. Kate thought the two animals' uneasy tolerance of one another mirrored Greg and Micklin themselves but she kept that opinion to herself.

If it continued to present Micklin with hunting trophies, the sergeant wasn't talking, although the occasional scent of meat roasting over open flame drifted through the base. At least he'd quit yelling at Greg to do something about it, which Kate thought was a good idea. There was a limit to how much Greg was going to put up with and she really didn't want to be around when he decided he'd had enough.

"I'm surprised Micklin hasn't shot it," Bragg said darkly.

"Naw, he wouldn't do that," Jim countered. "I reckon he likes animals more than people. He likes Meatball well enough."

"He likes Meatball better than he likes Pappy," Boyle said and everyone erupted with laughter.

They all looked up as the door of the Sheep Pen opened and slapped shut. TJ strode across the floor, shaking his head.

"You aren't going to believe this," he said. "I went out to talk to Hutch about my landing gear and Micklin was sitting on his throne with that cat on his lap, having a conversation with it."

"A conversation?" Kate nearly choked on her beer. Of all the things she'd seen in this part of the war, the notion of tougher-than-a-boiled-owl Master Sergeant Andy Micklin talking to a cat was beyond her scope of reality.

"Yeah!" TJ said. "I couldn't believe it either. But there they were, plain as the nose on my face."

"What were they talking about?" Casey asked.

"Dunno," TJ returned. "Soon as he saw me, he shut up. But that cat was sitting there on his lap, listening to every word like it was the Gospel."

"I gotta see this." Bragg headed toward the door, followed by half a dozen other Black Sheep and a chorus of "Me, too!"

"Stand down!" Greg stood up. "Don't you bunch of meatheads go barreling out there looking for trouble. Let him be and don't stir the pot."

The boys reluctantly dispersed.

"Come on, Cameron," Greg said, taking Kate by the elbow. "I gotta see this."

"You just told them not to go out there. What happened to leading by example?" she asked dryly as they made their way to the mechanics' shed. Meatball fell in behind them.

"I'm the CO and Micklin's been trying to pin this cat on me since it showed up. I'm just doing my job." His grin was all innocence. Kate rolled her eyes.

They found Micklin exactly where TJ said he was, sitting on the recycled jeep seat, the cat on his lap. The cat exceeded the limits of his lap and the animal's tail and an odd leg dangled haphazardly to the side. Both feline and human looked completely relaxed. The cat's oversized fangs gleamed against its fur, giving it a distinctly sinister appearance.

"Looks like the two of you made friends," Kate said.

"Yepper." Micklin scratched the cat behind the ears and she heard the familiar diesel engine rumble from his chest. He looked at Greg suspiciously. "Whattaya want, Boyington, can't you see I'm enjoying a little quiet time with this here cat?"

Meatball started to trot over for a scratching, too, saw the cat and back-peddled. The cat's tail jerked. Meatball peeked around Kate's legs and twitched his lip in a snarl.

"I never figured you for a cat person, Micklin," Greg said. Kate wondered if a brawl ensued, whose side the cat would be on.

"I ain't a cat person. I just got a healthy respect and admiration for an animal that earns its keep." He cast a doubtful eye at Meatball. "Yer dog does okay, running them varmints off but Fish here, he ain't no lap cat. He's a workin' cat," Micklin declared.

"Fish?" Greg choked.

"A working cat?" Kate knew she could express skepticism without getting flattened. The cat did not show any more inclination toward working than the Black Sheep the morning after a welcome party for new nurses. "Um, what's his job?"

A small flock of pigeon-like birds circled low, swooping toward the line of Corsairs. Micklin pointed at them.

"Sic 'em! Get 'em outta here."

Kate watched, dumbfounded, as the black shape leaped off the sergeant's lap and streaked across the sand as the birds lowered to land on the wing of the plane furthest away. If there was one thing Micklin hated worse than having his planes beat up by college boys, it was having them pooped on by birds.

Just as the birds began to alight, the cat leaped skyward. Feathers flew and there was an indignant squawk. The birds lifted off again, wings flapping to gain altitude as they disappeared over the jungle. The cat turned and stalked back down the line. Several mechanics called out to it and were acknowledged by a haughty jerk of the animal's tail.

"I'm impressed, Sarge," Kate said. "But . . . _Fish_?"

"Thought about Mousetrap but Fish has a certain ring to it, like a torpedo, you know."

Greg nodded slowly. Kate thought he was fighting with everything he had not to laugh. She looped her hand through his arm and said meaningfully, "Didn't you want to talk to Hutch about that camera mount?"

Before he could say anything, she drew him away. Meatball trotted next to her, keeping a cautious eye on Fish over his shoulder.

"Don't you dare laugh out loud," Kate warned as they made their way back into the base. "Just keep walking."

"I've seen it all," Greg muttered. "The first guy who makes a cat joke where Micklin can hear him is going to be picking up his teeth."

"I think since half the boys are still afraid of that cat and the other half are afraid of Micklin, there's not much danger of that happening," Kate pointed out.

Suddenly, they heard a scream, followed by howls of laughter and a lot of swearing.

"You asshole, Gutterman! I'll get you for that!" Boyle's indignant yell carried on the early evening breeze.

She shot Greg a curious look.

"What was that about?"

"It's Halloween." He shook his head. "That bunch of practical jokers will be at it all night. I think they invited the nurses over and TJ was mixing up one of his famous punch recipes. Casey said half the island rum is missing from the bar." He looked resigned at an evening spent keeping the Black Sheep from killing each other.

Kate pointed at the sky. "Look."

Through the palm trees, a full moon rose over the Pacific.

"It's beautiful." She paused. "Samhain is a time when the veil between the worlds thins and anything can happen."

"Saw-en?" He mimicked her pronunciation.

"Halloween. The Celtic new year."

"Anything can happen? Like what?"

"Like Micklin adopting a cat with vampire fangs and naming it Fish."

"You got that right."

She pulled him to a stop.

"Can you get away from this zoo tonight?"

Greg cast a thoughtful glance toward the base. Boyle was chasing Gutterman, who easily outdistanced him on longer legs. He shrugged.

"Once the nurses get here I don't think they'll burn the place down."

"Then I think we should go to the beach and build a traditional Samhain bonfire to keep the spirits away. And I think you still owe me one from running interference between you and Micklin the first time Fish left him a little present."

Greg studied her and she felt the full, appreciative warmth of his gaze.

"How much do I owe you?"

"A lot," Kate said. She wrapped her arms around his neck and brushed her lips over his. "It's gonna take you all night to pay up."

 **THE END**

Thanks for reading this little frolic. And thanks to everyone in the Sheep Pen. You're great enablers. I wrote this in memory of my own Fish, a big, gray cinder block of a cat called Bonus – the cat who showed up out of nowhere, moved in like he owned the place, never met anyone he didn't like and was a total pain in the ass.

May your Samhain be blessed with animals who find you when you need them, whether you know it or not.


End file.
